


Rogue Witcher

by theLoyalRoyalGuard



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, M/M, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Possible Geralt/Cassian at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22221610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLoyalRoyalGuard/pseuds/theLoyalRoyalGuard
Summary: Another day, another contract.Except the monster Geralt is contracted to kill isn't a monster at all, but a man and a droid from a galaxy far far away, and the meeting may change the course of his destiny.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/K-2SO, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 36
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the crossover no one asked for, from the depths of my two favorite fandoms. You're welcome.

The contract was certainly an unusual one. Unusual enough to intrigue Geralt into pursuing it, even though this part of Velen was little more than a backwater ravaged more by the monsters of war than anything preternatural. But where there was war came nekkers and ghouls, and he had a particular distaste for necrophages of that sort. 

The contract posted in the dilapidated town square, however, did not mention ghouls or anything of the sort. It sounded more like a possession, or perhaps a curse. A misformed creature made of black armor, with glowing white eyes. 

“Be careful, witcher,” said the alderman when Geralt brought him the ratty paper torn from the sign board. “Some say there’s a man up there with the monster, though whether he be master or prisoner, I cannot say. None dare come close enough to learn more.

“There’s little else I can give you but bread for the journey. I’ve never seen the thing with my own eyes, nor does it sound like aught I’ve heard of before, but we’d be grateful if you rid us of its presence. We’ve enough troubles of our own.” The old man rasped his hand over his beard, then beckoned to his wife. She brought bread and hard yellow cheese, which Geralt accepted with a nod. 

They discussed the fee for slaying the beast, though without knowing what it was, a price was difficult to set. Geralt went low, not because he thought the fight ahead would be easy, or because he could afford to tighten his belt any further, but because he doubted the whole town together had enough coin left to pay what it was really worth.

Evening drew on as they finished negotiation, bringing with it the heavy scent of cold spring rain and a quickly darkening sky. Leaving the alderman’s house, Geralt frowned into the wind that tugged his white hair across his face. There would be no facing the creature in this weather, and he’d rather have old straw for a bed than a muddy field. He paid for a bed at an inn which barely deserved the distinction of the title, thin stew and watered beer, and spent much of the night awake, listening to the thunder snarl above the roof. At least there weren’t any leaks.

In the quiet before dawn, Geralt looked over the small wooden chest of his potions and oils, but took none of them yet. Sullen water dripped from the eaves as he carried his bags out to the stable and saddled Roach. The bay mare leaned comfortably against him as he tightened the girth, and he gently shoved her off. 

“There’s a chance it’s a couple of deserters,” he murmured contemplatively to her. “Black armor means they’re probably Nilfgaardian. But even superstitious peasants should know the difference between a human monster and a haunt.” Roach huffed, which he took as agreement. “You’re right, plenty of Nilfgaardians around these days. They’re not likely to get them confused. Still, that would be easiest.” He scratched her neck under her mane. The stable boy had gotten most of the burrs out. 

Last, he checked the silver sword carefully wrapped in oilskin, concealed among his bags. He would only switch it out for the steel when he was certain he would need it. 

It drizzled still as he rode out of town, wan light just beginning to grow in the east, soon swallowed by the clouds as the sun rose into them. Heavy fog turned the fields and orchards into a ghastly dream world falling away to either side, Roach and himself an island of reality moving purposefully through the grey sea. Roach shook her head, harness jingling, water spraying off her coat. 

Following the alderman’s directions, he turned her from the road onto a winding goat path into the woods. The fog smothered his senses, but he rode relaxed, his mind on the Path ahead. Water dripped from his hood. The goat track narrowed as it wove into the hills, and Roach turned, ears pricked. Together, they watched a herd of deer flick out of sight. 

Around midday, the fog broke apart, letting watery sunlight through the stunted trees and brush. It did nothing to warm the witcher, but it lit up the lightning-struck oak the alderman had used as a landmark. Bigger than any of the trees around it, its trunk was black and split, but new leaves above grew delicate and green. 

Here, Geralt tied up Roach where she could reach the sweet new grass between the roots. Alone, silent, he crept north through the undergrowth, listening close to the sounds of the wood. Insects creaked and birds called, but he neither heard nor felt anything out of the ordinary for a forest in Velen. The medallion on his chest remained still. 

He left the trees for thin, exposed grassland, good for the grazing of goats and sheep. Old droppings made little wet mounds melting from the rain, but there were no goats here now. The shepherd was afraid of whatever lived or lurked in the rocky outcrop thrust from the earth ahead of him. It must be a nice place for a shepherd to take shelter and for the goats to clamber about, which made it an equally nice den for a deserter. Or for many kinds of monster. Geralt loosened his sword in its sheath, approaching the rocks from the blind side. 

He smelled the ghoul before he saw it, crumpled in the lee of a small boulder. Geralt bent over it, a corpse less than twelve hours old, with only a deep burn mark seared through its skull. Three others sprawled in the grass, two with the same marks scorched through them. The third had been thrown into the rocks hard enough to shatter its spine. 

The burns, too precise to be natural fire, indicated sorcery from either the monster or the man supposedly with it, and lessened the possibility of his quarry being deserting soldiers. 

At the last clump of cover, a tangle of blackberry brambles not yet in bloom, Geralt settled down to watch. If he saw nothing by day, he would come back tonight.

He didn’t have to wait long. 

The creature that stepped from the cave definitely was not a Nilfgaardian soldier, or anything else human. It was bipedal and remotely humanoid, but there the resemblance ended. The limbs were too long and thin, the torso a dark, heavy block. When the domed black head turned toward him, round eyes flashed pure white. Even at this distance, he was quite sure they _glowed_.

In a hundred years on the Path, Geralt had never seen or heard of anything like it. 

Geralt leaned into the breeze, caught the sickly rot of the dead ghouls, and then the fainter scent of cold metal and grease. 

The creature at the top of the hill swept the area with its blank white gaze, back and forth. If it saw Geralt, he couldn’t at first tell. And then it spoke.

“Cassian. There is a man out there.” The voice was lightly inflected, almost-human, but produced by no lungs or lips or tongue, with no accent he’d ever heard before. A pause followed, an answer from inside the cave Geralt couldn’t hear, and then the creature said, “He is not like the others. This one is armed.”

Seeing little point in hiding when he’d been seen, Geralt rose, right hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword. He did not draw; the creature did not sound like an unreasoning beast, and he did not intend to be the one to provoke an unnecessary fight against an unknown power. 

A man stepped from the cave into the weak sun, favoring one leg with a bloody bandage around his thigh. Whether the blood was what attracted the now-dead ghouls, or was caused by them, Geralt couldn’t say from where he stood. The man was young, shorter and lighter than the witcher, brown and dark-haired like a Zerrikanian, and though Geralt did not recognize the object in his hand, the stranger held it like a weapon. He thought again of the burned ghousl and kept his distance, ready to cast a Sign.

So the human, whoever he was, wasn’t a prisoner, that much was as plain as the simple brown shirt and leather jacket he wore, cut in no style the witcher had seen before. Nor had the creature spoken to him like a servant to a master. Curious. Very curious. 

“Who are you?” called the man. His gaze darted across the hillside with the wariness of one experienced in fighting, and in escaping. His accent was different from the creature’s, thicker, and not Zerrikanian. “Are you alone?

The strange weapon rose to level with his chest as Geralt paced slowly into the open. He lowered his hand away from his sword, but the stranger did not oblige to do the same. 

“I am alone. Your companion, what is he?” 

“I am Kaytuesso,” said the creature. “I am a reprogrammed Imperial droid. Did the people with the small ungulates send you here to kill us? You are not like them.”

“They did,” Geralt replied, making particular note of the word Imperial. Where had Emhyr gotten such a creature? “I am a witcher. But it remains my hope violence will not be necessary.” He was damp and not very comfortable, but any annoyance was banished by curiosity at the man and the… droid. 

“We have no intention of harming the villagers,” the man called Cassian responded, finally lowering his weapon. 

Not wanting to end like the ghouls, Geralt did not relax. A sorcerer and his creature could not be trusted, the witcher knew that better than most people, because most people didn’t live long enough to learn from their mistakes. That the man appeared young – and handsome – only made him more likely to be a sorcerer in Emhyr’s employ. But that didn’t necessarily make him Geralt’s enemy. 

“Then what do you want?” If they stayed here, the ghouls would keep coming. Worse, the frightened villagers might eventually be foolish enough to try something on their own. “You can’t stay here.”

The man and the droid exchanged a glance, but it was the droid who spoke. 

“Cassian requires medical equipment, and I will soon require a generator to replenish my power stores. Both are on our ship.”

They were reasonable necessities, except that they were nowhere near the sea, or even a river big enough for a ship. It did seem, however, that these two were not here with malicious intent, and not for the first time, Geralt’s curiosity got the better of him. 

“Where’s your ship?”

“Where isn’t the problem,” Cassian said, his voice taut. “We crashed not far from here, and were attacked shortly after by a… we’re not sure what it was.”

Slowly, finally, Geralt took his hand from the hilt of his sword. He would satisfy the villagers if he got rid of them, and perhaps his own curiosity, too. “Then perhaps I can help.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t work for free.” 

Cassian and the droid exchange a glance. The injured man was seated on a rock, Kaytuesso standing protectively over him. Geralt stood facing them, arms crossed over his chest. From the smell of the blood wrapped around Cassian’s leg, the wound was beginning to sour. Kaytuesso was right; he needed a healer, and soon. The only medicines Geralt carried were poison to anyone else. 

It was also increasingly clear that Cassian wasn’t a sorcerer. The witcher’s medallion didn’t so much as twitch anywhere near either of them. Though that left what Kaytuesso was even more of a mystery to him.

“I doubt we have any money you would accept,” Cassian said. 

“Unless you work for Imperial credits,” the droid added, “but this planet was not on any of our navigational charts or–”

“Kay!” Cassian cut him off. 

He couldn’t help but be curious what Kaytuesso had meant to say about charts and the Empire, but it wasn’t his job to ask questions. It also wasn’t his job to care that there was a high chance this Cassian was a spy for Emhyr. 

“Nilfgaardian money is no good to me on this side of the Yaruga.”

“We are not familiar with local politics,” Kaytuesso said, earning himself another glare from his companion. 

“It’s imperative that we reach our ship and repair it,” Cassian said, his voice tight with urgency. “Is there any other way we can pay you?”

The obvious answer stuck behind his teeth. The witcher’s jaw clenched against it. A new bank of dreary clouds shadowed what little sun there had been, dropping the temperature around them. He turned his face towards the sky, constricting his pupils to allow him to look into the light. 

No. He’d had enough of that particular reward to last him lifetimes. Besides, whatever these two didn’t expect to find was probably going to be a monster. They had nothing he needed. What he needed, he’d already had, and then sent away. Ciri was safe with Nenneke and…

...and Yennefer.  
No, these two had nothing he needed, except perhaps the ship.

“When you have repaired your ship, you will give me passage to the nearest port.” He would find his own way from there. The jobs here were too small, the people too poor to offer him much worth his time and possibly his life. 

“That’s acceptable,” Cassian said. 

“Good. First, we should collect the bodies and burn them. And then you will take me to your ship.” He gestured at the corpses of the ghouls with disgust. 

Collecting them did not prove to be a terribly difficult task, though it was never a pleasant one. Living ghouls stank. Dead ghouls stank worse. Whatever a droid was, foul smells didn’t seem to bother this one, though he complained about the fluids they leaked. Geralt used the opportunity to judge, by how easily he lifted the bodies, just how much strength was in those metal limbs. He found himself glad he wouldn’t be fighting Kaytuesso; it seemed unlikely either silver or steel would have much of an impact on him.

Because the wood was damp, Geralt poured oil over the whole hideous mound, then twisted his hand into the Sign of Igni. The wood and oil crackled, smoked, and then burst into greasy flames even more pestilential than the smell of the ghouls alone.

The droid’s eerie white eyes stared at him through the rising smoke. “That was fascinating. How did you ignite the fire? I didn’t see a flame thrower.”

“A Sign,” he said simply, not interested in explaining himself. 

Cassian, who had helped until his leg gave out and Kaytuesso forced him to sit down, watched him, too. He had his sleeve bunched around his hand and pressed to his nose and mouth, slightly feverish eyes fixed on the witcher. 

Whatever he was thinking, when Geralt and the droid walked back up the hill to him, he only said, “You two should go to the ship without me. I’ll only slow you down.” 

“I am not leaving you here, Cassian,” Kaytuesso said. 

“I have my blaster, Kay. I’ll be fine. Come back for me when you’ve taken care of the thing on our ship.” 

“I don’t recommend being alone here overnight,” Geralt said. “You can ride Roach.”

“Roach?” Cassian asked.

Geralt turned and walked back down towards the trees, skirting the foul smoke of the pyre. Beyond it, the air smelled of rain again, of wet loam and rotting leaves. Roach was where he’d left her, contentedly stripping young leaves off the bush nearest her tether, her tail flicking flies from her rump. She turned to bump her soft muzzle into his shoulder, and he took the time to rub the white patch between her eyes. Rain began to patter on the leaves overhead. 

“Well, there’s no point waiting around. This will probably go on all night.” Her ears flicked forward as he talked. “May as well find out who the real monster is, hmm?”

The witcher untied her reins and led her out of the trees and over the trampled grass. Even though he gave the pyre a wide berth, she shied away from it, and he had to lean his weight against the bit to urge her to move. 

“I’d think you’d be used to this sort of thing by now.” He’d had this Roach for almost a year. 

Then the mare flung her head up and dug her heels into the stony ground as Kaytuesso stepped out of the smoke and came down the hill towards them. 

“What is that?” the droid asked, gesturing towards the horse. “Will it carry Cassian?”

“Yes, she will.” He soothed the mare, rubbing her neck, until she would follow him past the droid and up the hill. She had no trouble with Cassian riding her, though she got anxious whenever Kaytuesso came too close. He even suspected she liked having a significantly lighter rider. Geralt walked. He didn’t mind stretching his legs once they had returned to the relatively even road. 

“He knows where it is,” Cassian said simply. He was beginning to slump over Roach’s saddlehorn. 

“You have a fever, Cassian,” the droid said.

“Yes. I noticed,” Cassian replied. 

“At this speed, we would arrive in one hour and seventeen minutes, however, this road is not taking us by a direct route,” the droid went on in his matter of fact way. “We would have done better to return to the ship the way we came.”

“Not with night coming,” Geralt said. “The forest isn’t safe at night. The road isn’t much better, but your friend won’t do well if we go out of our way to find an inn.” He did not point out that they were still nowhere near a body of water suitable for a ship. This whole situation as extremely odd, and he wanted to find out why. If only to take his mind off the people he already spent too much time thinking about.

It took them much more than an hour. The rain increased, beating on Geralt’s hood. They didn’t stop to eat, but Geralt shared the bread and cheese from the alderman’s wife with Cassian, who ate little and murmured his thanks. The droid complained about the rain. 

Near midnight, when Geralt was about to give in and say they should find some semblance of shelter, Kaytuesso came to an abrupt halt. 

“We have to leave the road here. The ship is that way, in those hills.” He pointed one long arm into the blackness of mooreland beside the road. “I told you we would have reached it sooner if we had not gone all this way around. I think we could have managed any more of those ghouls between the three of us, and it is bad for Cassian to be out in this wet.”

Roach snorted and shook her head, tack jangling, as if in agreement. She would much sooner have been comfortably in a warm stable, which was probably the one thing they could all agree on. Geralt wouldn’t have minded a warm stable about now, either. 

“I’m fine, Kay,” Cassian said quietly. No one bothered to argue with him. 

Geralt widened his pupils to their fullest, to take in what little light was available to him from the cloudy black sky. It wasn’t much. There was a low click, and then a beam of bright white light fell across the ground from Cassian’s hand.

“Hmm. You are a sorcerer.”

“What, this?” Cassian held up something in his hand, the light moving with it. “It’s just a glow rod.” 

The light of the glow rod showed their way over the uneven ground, over the field and up towards the hills. They kept to the low ground to spare Roach. From half a mile away, the witcher heard a faint, high pitched chatter. Too high for human ears, though Roach’s twitched back with agitation. He held up his hand for Cassian to stop.

“Did you get a good look at the thing that attacked your ship?”

Cassian shook his head. The white light of the glow rod washed him out so that he looked almost like a phantom, his face floating above Roach’s back, his eyes deep hollows.

“It was large and insectoid,” said Kaytuesso, “and moved with extreme speed. I could not identify its species in any of my catalogues.”

That did not surprise him. Going to his saddle bags, he removed the small chest, and exchanged the sword on his back for the one so carefully wrapped in oilskins. It was a beautiful sword, a work of art as much as a weapon. It seemed to absorb the light of the glow rod as he unwrapped it, and shine with a faint luminescence of its own. 

“You should remain here,” the witcher said. Cassian frowned down at him, and then wordlessly offered the rod. “I won’t need it. You should put it out; the light might attract things you would prefer not to meet.”

“I will protect Cassian,” Kaytuesso said firmly, and Geralt believed him.

The witcher climbed the hill in the drizzling rain. The wet had worked its way into his armor and clothes, making the leather squeak as he moved. Now he would see what this ship was. He suspected that it, like the droid, would be some sort of magic. No mundane ship had any excuse to be in the hills of northern Velen, far from both the Yaruga and the Pontar rivers.

At the crest of the hill, he dropped down onto his hands and knees to minimize his outline against the sky. A shallow valley dipped below him, the sides of the hills dark with thick scrub and stunted pine trees. On the opposite side, something had torn a wide gouge in the grass and brush, something that had come to rest in the bowl of the valley below. It might have been a ship, but like no ship Geralt had ever seen. 

Clearly it had struck very hard, the front end dug deep into the marshy soil at the floor of the valley, as if it had been hurtling through the air. It was heavily armored, plated in dull grey metal strong enough to survive the impact with the solid ground. It reminded him more of a small fortress than a ship.

How many of these did Emhyr have? 

Did it come from Emhyr at all, and if not… then where did it come from?

A dull, metallic scraping sound drew his attention to the darkness beneath the ship. It had struck at a slight angle, so that one side was lifted off the ground, making a sort of ledge beneath it. From beneath this ledge, something came crawling. Something large and insectoid. 

The witcher ducked back behind the top of the hill. Calmly, methodically, he opened the small wooden chest and removed two small vials. One after the other, he drank the contents down, shuddering at the hideous taste. Shuddering harder as their effects took hold and the muscles and veins in his neck strained and bulged from his skin. 

The spasm passed, and the witcher rose to his feet. He stashed the box carefully in the lee of a stone, and then descended the hill, silver sword shining in his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs for violence, mentions of gore and injury, and spider-scorpion-ish... things

Kay had to lift Cassian down from the horse’s back. Cassian shuddered as his feet touched the ground, pain sizzling up the nerves into his knee, which promptly folded under him. One hard metal hand casually held him up, wrapped around his bicep, until he could steady himself on the mare’s saddle. At least she now tolerated Kay’s presence, though with ears turned slightly back. 

“I don’t think we should have let him go alone,” Cassian said. It was cold enough his breath fogged in front of him, and faint mist rose from Kay’s chassis as the rain evaporated off the warm parts of his plating. “That thing could kill him.”

“If he kills it, too, then we can leave,” Kay said. “Cassian, this is an uncharted planet. We should not be here.”

“And you’re enjoying it.” Cassian rolled his eyes. His head throbbed with fever, and he kept shivering.

“I am not,” Kay said in offended tones. “Everything here has been wet or disgusting or both. And you are injured. Again.”

Cassian squinted through the dark up towards the top of the hill. Over that rise was their ship, hopefully not full of monsters, hopefully not so broken it wouldn’t get them out of here. Kay was right, they shouldn’t be here. Worse, he’d missed his rendezvous in the Tekvar Ring, and doubted he’d be able to get another meeting with that contact. Who knew what vital information he may have lost?

How had they even gotten to an uncharted planet? Though the man, the witcher, seemed familiar with the Empire, so maybe Kay was incorrect…

The thought made his head hurt worse.

“I think you should go help the witcher.”

“I am not leaving you,” Kay said, with an annoyed buzz in his vocabulator. “Stop trying to suggest it. Things always get worse when one of us goes alone.”

“Fine, then take me to the top of the hill and then help him.”

“Oh yes, I will lead you closer to the insectoid creature that might think you look very tasty, and then leave you alone. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan.”

At this distance, he couldn’t hear anything from the place where the ship had crashed. The white haired man had not appeared particularly concerned by whatever he was going to face out there. He didn’t seem to have been very concerned by anything at all since they’d met. 

He looked almost human. Cassian had never heard of a witcher before, but perhaps it was a local term for a species he wasn’t familiar with. His expressions seemed to range from mild interest through sarcasm to mild annoyance, his voice a rough, oddly metallic growl. But Cassian was very used to people with metallic voices who lacked in facial expressions.

The thought made him smile, which made him feel worse for sending the man off alone, possibly to his death. He really didn’t want another death on his hands, even if only tangentially.

“Fine. Take me to the top of the hill, and I’ll let you use my blaster to snipe it.” He knew that was a deal Kay absolutely could not resist. He was right.

They took the horse with them, since it didn’t seem safe to leave her alone at night, but she shied and jerked back against the reins as they neared the hilltop, and Cassian remembered the ear-piercing high shrieks of the creature that had gotten between them and the ship when he and Kay went to recon the area where they’d crashed. 

Letting go of the stirrup he’d been holding on to for support, he darted ahead of Kay and the horse, up to the top, and dropped down into a sniper’s crouch. He didn’t have the attachments for his rifle, which would make any shot he tried to take much harder, but not impossible. 

And then he caught sight of the witcher below, and froze.

Without stars or moon, it was dark in the valley below, but the ship’s emergency lights had been activated by the movement, casting an eerie reddish glow bright enough he could just make them out, two figures in seamless motion. The creature, all striking limbs and lashing tail, and the witcher, a silver and white blur moving beneath the legs. They were dancing, a brutal, deadly dance.

The creature gave a shrill, chattering shriek as the witcher’s sword skated off its carapace and sliced into joint. One leg gave way, but it had five more, and struck with a barbed tail. The witcher spun away in a graceful pirouette, red light flashing down the blade in his hands.

Cassian had never seen someone fight like that, much less against something so much more apparently deadly than himself. For a moment, he’d forgotten the blaster he held, until a durasteel hand plucked it from his grasp.

Kay aimed and took a shot faster and far more accurately than Cassian could have at this range with that weapon, but the only effect was that the creature whipped around and started towards them, with another shrieking cry that pierced Cassian’s ears. 

Kay squeezed off four more shots in rapid succession, and finally the creature stumbled. In one fluid leap, the witcher sprang onto its back, and brought the bright sword slashing down.

“You said I could,” Kay said, holding the blaster out again, but Cassian didn’t take it, too busy squinting into the valley. The witcher had placed his foot on the carapace of the fallen creature, using the leverage to work the blade out of the shell, but something was moving behind him, between him and the ship. Not one something, but many, a seething rush of small limbs.

“Behind you!” Cassian shouted, putting all his breath into it, so his voice echoed like the blaster shots off the hills around them. Either the witcher reacted to his voice instantaneously, or he had heard the creatures behind him.

They were small and low to the ground, so Cassian couldn’t count the monster’s spawn, but there must have been at least twenty. Too many. They swarmed up over their dead parent at the witcher. Kay shot two, and then the witcher gestured, and several more went flying as if yanked by unseen strings.

What _was_ he? 

The only people with powers like that existed in legends. 

In the moment’s reprieve, the witcher finally freed his sword from the dead monster, and laid into the spawn around him. They must have been softer than the adult, for the blade cleaved them easily, but they had the advantage of numbers. 

“He has a seventy-nine percent chance of failure,” Kay said calmly, firing at the crablike beasts. Each of them was only knee high to the witcher, but they did not stop, no matter how many of them were killed.

“Kay,” Cassian pleaded, sickened with the fact that he couldn’t _do_ anything. They only had the one blaster, and he didn’t think it had enough charges left for all the little beasts. Even if he hadn’t been wounded and feverish, he couldn’t have fought those things without another blaster.

“Eighty-eight percent chance of failure,” Kay said, as one of the creatures leaped at the witcher from behind. He whirled, slashing it out of the air, then continuing the strike back around to slice the legs off another. 

“I don’t want to know, Kay!”

“I’m sorry, I understand.” Two of the spawn finally realized they were being attacked from more than one angle, and broke off to race up the hill towards them. Three more followed. “Do you also not want to know that we are down to twenty percent charge?” the droid asked mildly. He shot down the first creature, but the ones after that learned the lesson, and dodged the next shots, scuttling aside from the bright red bolts. 

As they crested the hill, rushing straight for where Cassian crouched, Kay dropped the blaster. Cassian snatched it out of the air, sat up on his knees, hissing a curse as pain shot up through his calf. 

Kay, impervious to claws and barbs, stepped between the creatures and Cassian, blocking his view of the battle in the valley. Cassian fired, close enough now that his target didn’t have time to dodge. Three left. Kay grabbed one that leaped at him, and slammed it down into the ground hard enough Cassian heard shell crunch. Two. He shot one ten feet from him. Behind him, the mare neighed a loud, furious call. 

The fifth spawn scuttled around Kay and leaped at Cassian from the side. It slammed into him, knocking him sprawling. The blaster fell from his hands, skidding down the muddy slope they’d climbed up. Knife-like claws slashed at his ribs through his jacket as the creature scrambled to stay on top of him. Cassian struggled, his arms up to shield his face. Kay’s voice called his name as the mandibles snapped shut on his wrist. 

What happened next was a blur of pain and confusion, too fast to comprehend anything after the sound of his own scream. He thought the sky above him, one moment dark and filled with gnashing beast, was suddenly on fire. He thought he felt the heat of it on his face. The spawn released him, fleeing from the heat and the light. 

He rolled, instinct driving him to get to the fallen blaster. There was a creature in front of him, and then there was an arc of bright silver, and the witcher stood in its place. Impossible. He’d been in the valley just a moment ago, about to be consumed by the swarm. Impossible. Cassian’s head spun, and when he opened his eyes again, he was on his back on the muddy ground. Someone was holding his head up, supporting his shoulders, someone with arms that had muscle and bone beneath the armor.

Automatically, he arched his back to escape, but Kay’s voice, reassuringly close, said, “Cassian. Stay still.”

He obeyed. Focused to see it was the witcher bending over him. With Kay hovering protectively above them, he allowed the witcher to wrap a tourniquet around his left arm. The man’s face was hideously white against the dark sky, and his _eyes,_ there was something horrible about his eyes…

It took him two tries to find his voice. “How… how did you…?”

“Your weapon drew their attention.” The witcher’s voice had changed, too. Harsher, like the scrape of metal against stone. “I followed. Do you have medical supplies on your ship?”

Cassian nodded, though the movement alone made his head swim. “Medkits. You look like you could use one, too.” Blood and ichor streaked the witcher’s milk white hair, matting it black against one cheek. 

The witcher didn’t reply, but looked up towards Kay. “Put him on Roach. He shouldn’t walk like this. I’ll go ahead and make certain there are no more.”

He lowered Cassian back to the ground with surprising gentleness. Cassian immediately tried to sit up. Being the only one lying down made him anxious. As Geralt walked away, Kay helped him to his feet. 

“I don’t need you to carry me. I’m fine.” But he had to lean hard into Kay’s chest as another wave of dizziness washed over him. “Kriff.”

“Would you like to know–”

“I really wouldn’t.”

“Fine. Then I’m going to carry you.” Before he could protest, Kay picked him up. “You are wet, and your body temperature is higher than the healthy maximum.”

“Yeah. I got that.” Shivering, Cassian turned slightly in Kay’s arms, pressing closer to him. “You’re warm, though.”

“That you think so is concerning. You need a bacta treatment immediately.” Kay’s rocking gait soothed him, interrupted only once when he went to retrieve the witcher’s horse. She seemed to have decided the droid’s company was safer than being left out here alone, as they were quickly on their way without protest from her. Cassian managed to be vaguely glad she was all right.

And then he let his eyes slowly close.


	4. Chapter 4

There were more eggs heaped beneath the belly of the strange metal ship, sticky mounds of them clinging to the rocks, the mud, the iron. Translucent reddish jelly, full of a thousand small limbs already twitching. Suppressing a shudder of disgust, Geralt shaped his hand into the Sign of Igni. 

The hideous mass bubbled and melted in the heat. He was, by now, very tired, the effects of the potions beginning their first ebb. He’d feel worse once his body had metabolized them, much worse. 

He backed out of the cloying smoke that stung his eyes, in time to see Kaytu approaching, Roach’s reins looped around his long fingers, Cassian lying in his arms. 

“Cassian has lost consciousness,” the droid said, with a whirr in his voice that sounded like concern. “I need to get him inside.” 

There was a gap of some six feet between the end of the gangplank and the ground, the overhang part of what had sheltered the monster’s nest. With a grunt of effort, Geralt caught the edge and heaved himself up. Kaytu, whose head cleared the top with distance to spare, dropped Roach’s reins and lifted Cassian to the floor above. 

“This was very easy to get down from,” he complained. “But it’s part of why we couldn’t get back in when that unusual creature appeared.”

“The crash must have drawn its attention,” Geralt said. Taking Cassian under the arms, he dragged him back out of the droid’s way. The gangplank was corrugated metal. He couldn’t begin to fathom how a ship like this had been forged. 

“That is what Cassian thinks, too,” Kaytu agreed, and heaved himself up into the empty space Geralt left him. He looked more monstrous than usual, himself, a great black bulk rising up over the edge, the white lights of his eyes, flashing from the angle Geralt saw him. His metal knees, and then his feet, clanged as he stood up, and the gangplank wavered slightly under the weight of his movement. 

He slouched past them, stepping over Cassian’s legs, and did something to a small box set into the side of the closed door at the end of the gangplank. It was a good thing it was closed, too, or else the creature might have decided to nest inside, instead of beneath, the ship. That would have been extremely inconvenient.

An odd beep issued from the box, and the witcher’s frayed, alert nerves thrilled as the double doors rushed apart. The medallion around his neck, once again, did not so much as shiver. What kind of magic was this? A cold chill, having nothing to do with the on and off rain, crawled up his spine.

He bent to lift Cassian up, but the droid stepped in front of him, looming immensely. “I will carry him.” 

Geralt stepped back. 

“I’ll see to Roach.”

He was both eager and not to see the inside of this strange ship. With his senses still heightened by the concoctions he’d drunk, he could hear around it a faint, unnatural hum. But he could sense no magic, just as there was none around the creature that called itself a droid. A creature that resembled a metal construct, but spoke and behaved like an intelligent being. A creature that fought to protect his human companion. What ship was made of iron and fell from the sky? Piloted by a construct and a man who did not appear to be a sorcerer after all?

The ship unnerved him, just as the stink of the burned eggs made Roach shift and snort with anxiety. He rubbed her neck and around her ears until they relaxed, no longer angled back. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you go in there,” he murmured to her, loosening her girth and removing her saddle. “I don’t like it, either.” He had brushes in the saddle bag to rub her down, and the routine soothed them both. When she tried to lean into him, he gave her a gentle shove off. 

The ache of strain in his muscles, of the superficial but bloody scratches from the claws of the spawn, all set in by the time he dragged himself and his saddlebags up onto the gangplank. Leaving the mare tethered to the ship itself, much to her displeasure.

Warily, now with a slight limp in his step, the witcher at last entered the hulking fortress of the metal ship. 

Everything inside at the spare appearance of a military camp, nothing decorative, nothing extraneous. Dim red light shone from flat fixtures above, the same red glow that dimly lit the outside, but brighter here. He blinked, eyes narrowed to adjust. 

Heavy nets hung from the walls of the narrow corridor, restraining packages of supplies, itself a natural enough occurrence, but the architecture - if it called be called architecture - of the ship was in no style he’d ever seen. It was not Nilfgaardian. It was not even the work of Mahakaman, which would at least have been sensible for a ship made entirely of metal. No, it did not seem like the work of dwarves. If it was the work of the Aen Elle, well, that was beyond his knowledge.

Yen would know. And if she didn’t know, she’d find out.  
He picked his way carefully through the ship, half looking for its occupants, half looking for some clue as to its construction and power source. It did not seem to be, like Kaytu, alive in any way, but when he ran his fingertips lightly along one wall, he felt a faint vibration within the cool metal. 

Standing there, he heard at last the voices of his hosts. Kaytu’s, metallic, slightly muffled by distance. The witcher tilted his head, listening, one hand still resting lightly on the wall.

“Good. You are awake. No, stop moving.”

Cassian’s voice, quiet and strained, answered him. “What are you doing?”

“I am trying to put bacta on your arm. Hold still.” A pause. Geralt leaned forward slightly. Cassian was alive, at least, and feisty enough to require reprimanding. That seemed like a good sign. Geralt disliked when the people he was working for died. “Thank you for letting me patch you up,” the droid said, in a tone of such distinct sarcasm it nearly brought a smile to the witcher’s face.

“What about…?” Cassian muttered, nearly too quiet for even the witcher’s keen hearing. Geralt crept forward, every step placed with catlike care.

“He is fine. Much better than you.” 

There was a slight pause, a suppressed hiss of pain, and then Cassian said, “Do you think we can trust him? I mean, he doesn’t work for the Empire.”

“He appears to be a mercenary,” Kaytu replied. “Given his actions to this point, I believe we can trust him at least until we’ve repaid him. Though I find it curious that I cannot find any record of his species in my database. Or of the creature that attacked us.”

“I know.” Frustration tightened Cassian’s voice. 

“Do you? Well, I don’t. We have a seventy-eight percent chance of being unable to return even if we are able to leave atmosphere…

“That’s unacceptable,” Cassian snapped back. 

Another long pause stretched between them, then the droid spoke more softly. His range of vocal expression had been limited and pragmatic, until now. “I am sorry I could not protect you better, Cassian.” 

“Kay…”

The witcher reached the doorway to the central cabin. It stood open, on a cramped room with a single bunk hung from the wall, no indication of habitation or personal possession, and largely dominated by the droid’s black, hulking form. He sat on the bunk, and Cassian sat beside him, leaning against Kaytu’s chest, one palm raised to the smooth faceplate that would have been the droid’s cheek. The intimacy of the gesture brought Geralt to a halt.

It made no difference. Kaytu’s head whipped around towards him. Cassian’s hand dropped back into his lap. His injured wrist was wrapped in a bluish bandage, and his calf as well, his trousers rolled up to the knee.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You are very quiet,” Kaytu said in tones of deep disapproval.

Geralt shrugged. “It would be unwise to stay here long.”

“How long do we have?” Cassian pushed himself up, but when he tried to stand, an enormous black iron hand fastened around his upper arm. He looked up at the droid sternly. “Kay.”

“The bacta has not finished healing your leg. I will not allow you to injure yourself further.” They stared each other down for a moment, and then Cassian sighed and eased his full weight back onto the thin mattress. 

The witcher watched with impassive interest. Whatever was between them was no concern of his. Neither was where they’d come from. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t like to know.

“I would advise we leave before the next nightfall,” he replied. “I cannot promise that there are not more of those creatures, or that other things might come.”

“Like the ghouls.” Cassian’s face was tight, his mouth a thin line under his dark beard.

“Like the ghouls,” the witcher agreed. 

“Then we’d better hope, if the ship is damaged, we can fix it by nightfall.” Even just saying it, Cassian looked utterly exhausted. None of them had slept, and Cassian had a festering injury, which he appeared to be doing his best to pretend didn’t exist.

Kaytu intervened. “ _You_ will do nothing of the sort. _I_ will run diagnostics of the ship and make any necessary repairs. _You_ need to sleep.”

“And _you_ need to dock into the charging port,” Cassian snapped back irritably. “You’ve been complaining about your reserve battery since got here.”

“Well, one of us has to work on the ship, and I am not in need of repairs like you are. You have an eighty-nine percent chance of making a mistake in this condition. Remember what happened last time you didn’t listen to me?”

When Cassian, jaw tight, did not respond, the droid went mercilessly on. “We were chased by a bounty hunter, made a jump without proper calculation, and ended up here.” He gestured with one enormously long arm at the whole of the world. “And the time before that–”

“All right, all right!” Cassian threw his uninjured hand into the air in surrender. 

Geralt decided it was best to let him be. He didn’t look like the sort of man who got any rest with a stranger around. When Kaytu, victorious, clunked through the door on the other side of the room, the witcher followed. 

The room beyond had large windows on all three sides, steeply angled, which he had not had the luxury to notice from the outside. Two thickly padded chairs faced the windows, and around them spread panels of odd knobs and levers and what looked like tiny upside down vials of colored glass. It was plainly machinery, of a kind he could not begin to guess at. Perhaps he did not feel the magic in the ship because the power source was inactive, which did not explain the pervasive red lights. 

Apparently unconcerned by the tilt of the floor and the surrounding array of controls, Kaytu rotated one of the chairs and settled his enormous bulk into it, swiveling back to face the window. He began to flip switches with a series of pleasant clicks. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the witcher admitted, inviting himself to take the second chair. Watery pink dawn shone weakly through the glass.

“I am not surprised,” the droid said. “Your technology here appears to be remarkably primitive. How is it you have never seen a blaster before?”

“A what?”

The droid rolled his eyes. “Cassian’s weapon. A blaster rifle. You have never seen one before, I can tell. Therefore, it is only logical that the Empire has never been here.”

“The Empire?” Geralt looked him over closely, the smooth black shell, the unfamiliar symbol on his shoulder. “Do you work for the Empire?”

“Not anymore. Cassian took me away, and I joined the Rebellion with him. He is a–” The droid broke off and looked back at the panels in front of them. Several of the vials had lit up. All were red. “I am not supposed to say.”

“Then he’s a spy?” Geralt concluded. A rebellion spy. But human, so not one of the Scoia’tael. “Where are you really from?”

Kaytu made a huffing sound that did not move the air in front of the grill that should have been his mouth. “Another world.”

The witcher sat in silence with that for a long moment. The droid went back to flipping switches, and though he had no expressions, there was a definite air of increasing agitation in his movements. 

“The Empire you used to work for,” he said slowly, after the pause had stretched long enough for him to consider the full implications of what Kaytu had just said, “wasn’t Nilfgaard, was it?”

Kaytu shook his head. “I have no record of such a place or organization in my databank.” 

He pulled one of the larger levers, and something deep inside the ship coughed and began to hum, the vibration running through the floor and up into the witcher’s bones. Then it coughed again, rattled, and stopped.

“Oh,” Kaytu said. “That’s not good.” 

The doors behind them slid open. Cassian stood, leaning on the frame. “Kay, what’s going on?”

“The engine is at fifty-three percent capacity,” the droid said flatly. “But the hyperdrive is at only twenty-eight percent. We don’t have enough power to get home.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [armored](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306735) by [Bright_Elen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bright_Elen/pseuds/Bright_Elen)




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